St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1887-10-20
WHAT THE LAW COULD NOT DO.

HAN~'SND
WHAT THE LAW COULD NOT DO.
81 Fannie EDGAR Thomas in Nelo York Observer.
You step into schOOl-rOOm which
turbulent, dark, nOisome, disOrderly,
ninviting. Insolence is i'll the air,
lleness in every seat, and rebellion
he spirit of the place. You have too
eek the teacher before you find him,
nd are not pleased ut what you see.
Rules and regulations cover the walls
hon shalt and thou shalt not arc the
ontrolling powers of the room the
upils' brains are diverted from their
oOks, devising means for eiudIng the
wording of the law. Slyness, deceit,
evOIt, stand face to face with a scowl,
detective and rod the forces,
eacher and pupil, meet as enemies !;
he school-rOOm is Il battle-ground.
Next door you enter and find hive.
eads all bowed, forms erect, rows IN
rider. Noise is dead, disorder absent,
turbulence asleep. There is gentle
lurmur of recitation, friend helping
fiend. Not IL rule on the wall, not all
rider on the board. Law is a dead
stter in a condition controlled by an
INlSlOiO SPiiAo VI ehO -'-Ne0
or is there
Twenty years ago Five Points, New
ork, was notorious the world over as
Icing the most wicked and uncontrOl
abIe of humanity's haunts. 1t was the
lone of the murderer, the den OF
hieves, the lair of all that was wild,
avage and untamed. Poverty, suffer
ng. vice and crime held riot in this
shirIpool of Satan. People dared not
yak through it's midst by dark OF day
ght. 1t was truly ga GOd-fOrsaken
egion."
Today | walked through Five Points
nd did not know it
To reach the Third avenue elevated
load from Broadway, l unwittingly
passed right through the midst OF helPs
knterOom unscathed
To be sure il seemed as if heaven
ind earth came together there In the
Sharp vortex of streets which looks as
though so many sewers had lost their
yay, and i'm rushing to find it knocked
oreheads in the disOrderly, unshaped
ourt which makes the kernel proper
bf Five POints-a court i'll which nelth-
r straight line, square nor angle ap-
bears for space of about two and a
ialf blocks each way.
True, half-clad children, white,
black, yellow, green, and dirt-colored,
swarmed and wallOwed. True, more
han one poor wretch dragged his slow
ength along in the feeble, decayed,
Heath in life condition which marks
the inhabitants of more places than
Five Points, but not one single police
man did | meet on the way. Express
and delivery wagons ratified over the
stones, the street cars with their re-
spectacle conductors and drivers jog
ged calmly on their way as peacefully
as OH Broadway. One of the slantlng
boundaries is composed of the elevated
road, with all it's links of civilization,
just as in the uppest of uptown dis
tricts.
But there, in the attitude of giant
policeman, steady, strong, firm, but
not aggressive, stood guard unwlnk-
ingly over the interests of this metro
pOlitan maelstrOm, the gigantic white
building of the Five Points mission
church it's brand of office drawn clear
and ineffaceable across it's white fore
head, and its various little adJuncts
and annexes of schools, free missions,
Hospitals, and chapels, like so many
gentle landmarks stand around to ald
I'm the work of humanizing this devils
luarter.
In astonishment, not unmixed will
a strange dread, | asked the gate
keeper of the road: 500 you mean t.
tell me, sir, that this place through
which have just passed is the nOtOrl
BUS Five Points of New York I"
"Indade, thin, the very same place
it is, but not the Five Points of twenty
years ago or more, whin l wur young
man. The like o. you would nlver
cum out to AK me the QUESTION, nor th'
cop that'd thry TO lade ye out nathur
Yis, Five Points is a dacent enough
place to-day"
"WelI, what in the world has caused
such a remarkable changer How d.
you account for its being like this
even bad as it is I"
"Ah, thin schools and thin church
es There's nawthin kin stand EN-
They dhruv out and cOaxed out, ant
when they couldn't git 'em out no 9th
Ell way they just bought out all th'
divilthry-w which that same nlver ha(
the face to cum back and"
This then the key. This the cause
of so marvellous a change, the source
of SO much hidden power This tina
had led out not only lawlessness bu
the law. This the reason that L cOult
to-day walk unprotected through Five
Points, the quarter century ago thu
wickedest spot on the whole earth, anC
not know it .t.
The same law was here then as now
the same policeman, the same Jail
Thou shalt and thou shalt not swung
from the chilly" wet with the bloo'
# of the wretched victims, and laws or
lers tapped in the sOdden air over til
imprOvised scaffOld of the lamp post
& Law stood face TO face with lawless
H ness in one riOtOus combat, but wa
& not ablestO conquer it. Never was l s
foreibly struck with respect for tn
subtle, silent, restraining spirits, tn
church and the school, which, strong
er than law, have walked with us tC
. gether side by side ever since til
Vi cOuntry's birth, as | was to-day whe
walked through Five Points, Ne
York, and did not know it, fOr-''th
spirit of the Master was there J"
Boring a Square Hole.